With the advent of less expensive and smaller computer systems have come a number of electronic learning aids. The most common of these include math, spelling, and language translation aids. The most commercially successful of these devices are interactive, in the sense that they generate exercises and validate the user's response.
Distinguishing features of these learning aids are a small size, inexpensive price, and mass market appeal. They offer individual attention and self paced study. These features make them attractive to children and their parents on a broad scale. Typically, these devices operate as small digital devices, with inexpensive components for processing, memory, display, and user input.
Generally, the math learning aids use mathematic algorithms to calculate an answer, which is compared with the answer input by the user. Word learning aids, such as spelling and translation devices, use pre-stored exercises, which are read out of memory and compared with the user's answer.
In contrast to math and word exercises, grammar exercises are context dependent. Grammar, defined very generally as the study of the correct use of words in sentences, involves the relationship of words to each other. For most effective learning of grammar, the exercise should be presented as a sentence in which a part of speech, such as a pronoun or verb, is missing or incorrectly used. The user's role is to correct the sentence or supply the correct word.
The difficulty of generating effective grammar exercises is compounded by the need to teach the student how to extrapolate from the exercises to everyday use. This requires generating a variety of exercises. To prestore a large number of exercises would require extensive memory.
As any good teacher knows, effective teaching avoids needless repetition that will cause the student to become bored. Two culprits are failing to vary the exercises and forcing a student to endure being drilled on what he or she already knows. Interactive learning aids attempt to provide variety by randomizing the items in a prestored list. Nevertheless, this type of randomization operates on a fixed number of exercises. Nor have electronic learning aids been generally successful in recognizing the needs of a particular student. Although artificial intelligence techniques are known that could provide such a feature, the programming demands for such a device have been prohibitive.
Thus, a need exists for an electronic grammar learning aid that is inexpensive to build and operate, and that will keep the interest of the student. The exercises should be interesting and permit the student to concentrate on those grammar rules with which he or she is weakest.